


Nasty, Brutish and Short

by mary_pseud



Series: Damnatio Memoriae [17]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Artificial Wombs, Canon Divergence, Child Soldiers, Don't copy to other sites, Gen, Post-Serial: s078 Genesis of the Daleks, Skaro, alternative universe, the kaled dome, thousand years war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mary_pseud/pseuds/mary_pseud
Summary: The war on Skaro was over but the Kaled children, trained as soldiers since the cradle, will take a little convincing.





	1. The Grand Tour

The war was over. That's what they were telling all the Kaled boys. That the Thals and the Kaleds had signed a Peace Accords. That the battlefields were emptied, the weapons put away, the uniforms retired. That Davros would lead them into a glorious new era of achievements and peace.

Stor didn't believe a word of it. Every night in whispered conversations, he told the boys in his section that this must be another test: that they were trying to see which of them were really were good enough to become soldiers, and which were washouts that should be assigned to menial jobs in the Dome, or culled outright. And the next day, they would sit through their confusingly rearranged lessons (why would food preparation be more important than weapons maintenance all of a sudden?) and wonder.

"If the war's over, why can't we leave the boys' barracks?" Stor challenged the teachers. And the next day, a Dome area manager came, and laid out an enormous circular map over the tables. He pinpointed a tiny rectangle in one of the buildings with his pen, and said, "That is your barracks, this tiny square here. And the city here, all around you. And it's in a horrible state. Riddled with poisoned areas, collapsed foundations, endless danger. We can't let a group of children loose in here, what if you get lost? We could spend weeks looking, you could starve to death before anyone found you!"

The manager was quite impassioned, and Stor took the opportunity to question him in depth. He practically fawned on the man, expressed a newly revealed interest in peacetime careers and Dome management, and learned everything he could about the Dome: specifically, the areas just outside the boys' barracks.

He also stole the manager's pen.

That night, the pen's barrel was carefully flattened into an oval and applied to a certain lock. With slow and careful movements that put bone-creaking stress on their young wrists, they managed to pry open the emergency release hatch without setting off the alarums. And five of the braver boys, led of course by Stor (everyone thought that he was on the command track, that he'd be moved to advanced training any day now), crept outside to see what they could find.

Outside was dark. The hallways of the Dome were empty but not silent: there was a constant rumbling of machinery in the distance, along with faint voices and a rhythmic piping that none of them recognized, because they had never heard music before.

They actually navigated as far as the next barracks block, where the boys fell into argument. Two of them wanted to break into the barracks here, and see if these boys had also been told about the war being over: the other three, and Stor, wanted to go on and see what they could find farther out. See if they could find something to prove that the instructors' words were lies.

"Look at this!" one of them said. They all gathered open-mouthed around a large colourful poster that had been fastened to the wall. It showed a triumphant-looking scientist straight out of the education reels, and one of those security machines they had been told about, a Dalek. There were words underneath it that they couldn't read; they weren't on the memorised list of Approved Words, although some of the bits of them looked familiar. But it was the figure between the scientist and the Dalek that caught their eye.

The figure was wearing a long white formal robe, like a Councilman, but the hair was also long, longer than even a civilian would be allowed to wear it. And the face was wrong, too round and soft. The arms looked soft, and there was something swollen and unnatural about the torso.

"Is that a woman?" one of them asked, and Stor cuffed him.

"Of course not," he sneered.

"Oh really?" said a light voice behind them, and the six boys whirled and crouched instinctively, backing against each other into a defensive huddle. They didn't have any weapons, but their hands were held half-bent, ready to punch or gouge as the opportunity arose. In a moment they had transformed themselves from a group of gangling, open-mouthed boys to a tight little fighting unit.

The owner of the voice was wearing drab grey overalls, and carrying a long hose attached to a backpack of some sort. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

Stor moved forward half a step, careful to keep his weight on his rear foot, ready to lunge backwards. There were six of them against one - but they couldn't attack an adult, it was forbidden. He decided to see if an excuse would work.

"We wanted to find out the truth, sir," he said, standing up straight now. "About the war."

"The war is over," the stranger said, still in the same light voice, as light as a boy's. "And don't call me sir."

Stor's mouth opened to talk, and then just hung open. The other boys didn't break position, but they were all equally astonished.

The stranger was - was - was pulling a gasmask down, and spraying them with mist out of the hose!

From long training they held their breaths and scattered, each of them running as fast as they could. The gas was stinging in their nostrils. And behind them the stranger let out a loud yell, a wail, an alarum.

Eyiyiyiyiyiiii!

The cry was answered; more sharp high-pitched wails, more figures wearing masks, more gas sprayed over the boys who fought back, barehanded, or collapsed to the floor in surrender. It didn't matter if they fought or if they fell; they all went down eventually.

Stor was one of the fighters; he kept fighting even as his stomach churned in terror. Because all of them, all of the people in grey coveralls, all of the guards - they were - they were women.

* * *

Stor awoke in a bunk, with a sheet over him. His clothes were still on him, reeking of gas. And two people were talking. One voice he recognised at once: Forg, one of the teachers. And the other voice was unfamiliar - no, it was familiar. It was the light voice of the woman. He kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed, breathing slowly, and listened. It was always important to listen when you got the chance. Sometimes you learned things that the adults wouldn't otherwise reveal.

"I told you they'd do something. You underestimated them," said Forg, and there was pride in his voice.

"We did, I think. We wanted to give them more time to understand, but it's going to take years to get them up to speed. And the longer they act like little soldiers, the more damage they will do to themselves, and others possibly. This one," Stor heard footsteps moving closer to his bed, "he's the leader?"

"Stor. He is an excellent student-"

"A student of war, yes. I presume that he is unwilling to accept that that all your teachings were for nothing. Can't blame him, actually." Another scuff of footsteps. "Does he respect authority, though? If you order him to believe-"

"I won't believe," Stor snapped, opening his eyes. "Not without proof."

The woman turned and looked at him, and Stor flinched. It was a woman. He had - he had struck this woman, last night. But her mouth was unbruised.

"Would it be proof if you could see it with your own eyes?" she suggested.

"Impossible," Stor snorted, standing and turning to make the bunk up with swift gestures. He'd made up the bunk every time he rose from it since he could remember. "The battlefield's too large. It would take weeks to tour it, and it's dangerous."

"That at least is true. Land mines, predators, poisons, deserters - well. Let me think of who I can arrange to help you understand."

"Who are you?" A woman outside the Quarters, it was unheard of.

"A Daughter of Skaro, of course. You saw the broadcast, where Davros introduced us to the world." She turned to Forg and frowned. "They should all have seen it."

"He did, but he doesn't-"

"Doesn’t believe it." She tilted her head at an odd angle, and there was a flash of something metallic in her long hair. "Tell me, can you even conceive of a world where the war is over?"

"We didn't win. That means the war isn't over. It isn't over until it's won." Stor's mouth was snarling with rage. "If we didn't win-"

"Then it doesn't count?" The woman snorted. "The war is won when the war is done, Student Stor. Your victory is that you get to live."

Stor's eyes burned. He was not convinced, and he didn't like this woman. He certainly wasn't going to believe anything she showed him; women weren't taught anything, so how would she know the truth?

She walked away, saying over her shoulder to Forg, "I will have to see who we can find to teach him better than I can."

Stor was alone with Forg; he tensed himself, expecting a blow, or some worse punishment. But instead, the teacher put his hand on top of the boy's head, for a moment only.

"Half rations for the next three days, Student Stor. But - well done."

"Well done?" Stor was angry and hopelessly confused, both at once. "But I disobeyed - everything!" He'd lost count of how many rules he'd broken by sneaking out of the barracks.

"You were curious, and you wanted to find out the truth. Do you know how much I despair of students who come and absorb my lessons like silent little rocks, and then leave me to go and die without giving me any indication of how I have done?"

There was more emotion in Forg's voice than Stor had ever heard. He went on, "I wish I had more students like you. Students who question, who ask, who demand explanation. As stubborn and inflexible as you are, when you get a new idea in your teeth you are determined to chew it down to the bone. Now, dismissed."

Stor walked away, and didn't heard his teacher say behind him, "I wish I had a hundred more like you."

* * *

This time, Stor was going outside of the boys' barracks during the day. He tightly gripped the triple-signed pass that allowed him to do this: he'd never seen such a pass. The idea of going outside of his routine of training, eating and sleeping was frightening - and also deeply exciting.

And the excitement helped him ignore the rumbling of his hungry stomach.

At the miraculously open main door, a bandaged man was waiting for him. One of the wounded, apparently: Stor's lip curled for a moment, wondering if the bandage was another trick, a prop of some kind. If a soldier took a head wound of any consequence, he was culled. But the face under the broad bandage seemed familiar - narrow eyes, cheeks a bit spotty, a firm chin.

"Student Stor?" The stranger's tone was warm. His eyes were terribly calm, and yet somehow not emotionless.

Stor bowed his head to the adult by reflex, and the man gave a faint grin.

"No need for that. I'm Ravon. Pleased to meet you."

Stor's head snapped upright so fast that he felt a twinge in his neck, and his eyes widened in shock. He had seen this man before: seen a broadcast of him shouting out the glorious details of a victory over the hated Thals. But he'd been wearing a uniform then, the correct uniform. Now he wore civilian gear rather faded at the seams, as though taken out of long storage "You're General Ravon?"

The man shrugged. "Not anymore. I took a medical discharge." He turned and walked outside, and at a gesture Stor followed. He looked up, and around: it was the first time he had been outside this building during the day. It seemed - very large, outside. Much larger than he had realised in the dark. He suddenly felt small, a little boy in a drab coverall, with only a piece of paper to defend him against the outside world.

"Where are we going?" Ravon had a small electric vehicle with him; it certainly wasn't suitable for surface travel. Not outside.

"Up."

* * *

Up was the correct term. Stor hung eagerly at the window, after they reached the city's edge and entered a motorised little pod that crept up the side of the Dome. He could see the entire city up here, it was huge! So many buildings! He said that aloud to his guide, who frowned.

"So few people," replied Ravon sadly.

"What, sir?" And bit his tongue; he kept saying 'sir,' he couldn't seem to help it.

"How empty all those buildings are." Stor looked and realised, dimly, that where he saw a fantastic wealth of buildings, space, power, this adult saw only a hollow shell. The thought made him shiver a bit. The seat pivoted under him, and he saw that they were heading for a bubble hanging from the underside of the Dome, or a chamber.

When they entered, the chamber wasn't very large: it held a few chairs, what looked like a computer terminal, and a large empty vat of some kind. Stor was itching to see if the terminal was unsecured, but instead he stood by as Ravon produced a baffling collection of cables and straps.

"You'll have to wear a safety harness," he said."

"Why?" challenged Stor. "I'm not going to fall."

"Well, I might," said Ravon mildly. It was true that his walk was rather shaky. "The Dome's coating is very close to frictionless. And if I happen to grab you on the way down, I don't want you to fall."

Stor submitted to the straps around his hips; Ravon secured the two reels of metal cable to the floor. Then he hit a control; a hatch opened in the roof, and a metal chain-ladder rolled down and landed on the floor with a thump. It hung there, jingling a bit.

"Ready?" Ravon asked.

Stor swallowed, hard. He had never actually been outside. But he gingerly took the ladder in hand, and climbed.

There were little ledges to help him as he went through the Dome itself. Then he was through, and stood on what seemed to be a giant white floor. Except the floor didn't have any walls around it. And it went on as far as he could see, and in the distance there was haze, and - ground. Mountains. And above him must be the sky.

He was outside.

It was very still up here on the surface of the Dome. He looked up, and then winced and looked away; even through what must be clouds overhead, the 'sun' was bright enough to hurt his eyes.

"Is there going to be rain?" he challenged Ravon, who was carefully drawing himself up beside the hatch, and shaking out the cable to make sure it was running smoothly. "The lessons say that rain is a tactical impediment."

"Tactical impediment? And here I thought it was just wet," said Ravon. He looked up. "And no, it's not going to rain. If it was, those clouds would be considerably denser and darker."

Stor filed this fact away, and then looked around. There weren't any walls, but beyond the downward-curving edge of the Dome was a grey-brown mass, that extended to the horizon. That must be the battlefield. The Wastelands.

He moved a little, and felt his feet slip: with practised ease he fell into a crouch, as though he was about to dive under a fence. His body was tense and alert, and his head constantly scanned the white plain of the roof. Ravon was sitting down, sprawled out in a rather unprofessional fashion.

"Here," said the man, trying to clip a heavy loop of cable around Stor's wrist; the boy yanked his arm away and retreated out of reach.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't want you to drop these," Ravon said, holding up something that he'd taken out of a pouch at his hip. Stor stared at the something, and paid no attention when the cable was carefully fastened again.

The other end of the cable attached a strap, and the strap was fastened to a visioscope. A real visioscope, like the ones that he'd seen in historical war footage, held by long-dead commanders as they scanned the battlegrounds. They were all supposed to be gone, destroyed; he'd never seen one for real. He had devoured the technical specs he had found on an old instructional audiotape, though. It was just the sort of tool he had always dreamed of wielding in war - while being all too bitterly aware that he was more likely to use a sword, or a spear, or a sharpened stick.

"This is an N-class visioscope," said Ravon. "From the third century of the War. There are only three intact specimens in Kaled territory. One's power pack has failed, and they're searching the warehouses for a replacement. One suffers from overheating; even Davros and the Elite haven't been able to repair it. This is the last, perfect one. Please, please, do NOT drop it." And carefully, using both hands, he gave the boy the elaborate blocky device, heavy with electronics and lenses.

Stor's hands might have been glue, they stuck to the precious artefact so tightly. He had never held anything so valuable in his life, and his heart seemed to soar at the knowledge that the Gen-, that Ravon had trusted him with it. He put the visioscope to his eyes, his fingers had to stretch a bit to reach the controls. The first thing he did was set the eyepieces closer together; they moved with a smooth powerful whine. And then he looked.

He couldn't see the ground closest to the Dome, of course; but he could see further out. Trenches. Barbed wire. Ruined vehicles. And - people. But not soldiers, not in uniform.

People in gasmasks, carrying long poles and equipment. One of them gestured, and then threw something and they all fell down. There was a puff of smoke from in front of them, and they rose. Throwing grenades? Clearing land mines? Mines, he guessed. There wasn't anything to throw grenades at.

He had expected the landscape to be crawling with people: instead it seemed as barren as - as barren as the City.

"Where are the soldiers?" he demanded, not turning his head to look at Ravon. The perfect view was too much to give up, even for an instant.

"Inside the Dome. Those who are still alive. There aren't nearly as many soldiers as you probably were told, either."

There were some grey shapes moving at the edge of the trench barrier - it was fantastic how far he could see - and he said, "I see Mutos. I think." The figures limped, and weren't wearing uniforms.

"Probably looking for salvage goods." When the boy looked, Ravon was gazing upwards, as though enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face.

"Shouldn't you be taking notes, planning an-" Stor bit his tongue again.

"I'm not a General. And there are no attacks, and no attackers." Ravon shifted a bit, and suggested, not casually, "Try seeing how many of the mountain passes into Thal territory you can count."

Stor's jaw clenched at the name of the hated enemy. He knew what mountains were, so he found them on the horizon and scanned them, carefully, matching them in his head with the maps he had studied thousands of times in classes. But it wasn't right.

"That's the Drammankin mountain range," he said. "Has to be. But there should be seven passes through it, and I can't see any of them."

"Perhaps you see large piles of loose stone instead?"

Stor looked again. "Two are like that, and the others are all - they look like they're on fire."

"Fire?" Ravon sat up. "What do you mean?"

"There's smoke, great billows of white smoke-" There was more smoke now that he looked for it, hanging close to the ground here and there across the Wastelands.

Ravon laughed. "No, that's fungus for absorbing environmental poisons. Are there rows of lights on the ground, near where the passes should be?"

"Yes."

"Good, that means the particle fountains are in place, burning up background radiation. The Thals used the last of their atomics and distronic explosives to seal the passes."

"So we can't attack them?" Stor felt a pang of emotion; which emotion he was not quite sure. Disappointment maybe?

"So that neither of us could attack each other. It was not a formal part of the Peace Accords, but we knew they were going to do it and we did not interfere." He chuckled. "We meaning the Kaled government, I was still in therapy at the time." He touched his head.

"Couldn't the Daleks blast those passes open?" Stor had heard some very improbable tales of what Daleks could and could not do, and here was a man who must have military information. "If they all concentrated their firepower on one spot-"

Ravon laughed again. "One Dalek could break through those passes, Stor. One Dalek could burn its way through a mountain, or crawl across the bottom of the ocean and circumnavigate Skaro. But we have signed the Accords, and the war is over for all of us."

Stor looked around one last time, standing and spinning slowly and deliberately with the visioscope tight to his eyes, scanning the world as far as he could see. There was no fighting. There was no armies, no soldiers, no artillery, no gunfire to hear. Nothing. Silence.

The war was over.

"I'm dead."

Ravon audibly sucked in his breath.

"Or I might as well be dead," Stor continued, lowering the visioscope. He gritted his teeth, determined not to cry. "Because my life is over if I'm not going to fight, if I'm never going to kill a Thal in my life, than what am I going to do? Who am I going to fight, who am I going to kill?"

"I can't believe that killing is all there is to your life, and your future," said Ravon, rising to his feet and moving to stand close to the boy.

"Why not?"

"Because if I really believed that you could never be anything but a killer," Ravon leaned close, "the sensible thing to do would be to unhook the harness cable. And give you a nice, hard shove."

Stor looked at Ravon, imagining the long slow slide down the slope of the Dome, going faster and faster, falling finally - unless the tumbling killed you first.

"You wouldn't," Stor said logically. "You'd destroy the visioscope." He clutched that item closer to his chest, and shifted away half a step.

"So what?"

"So what? It's priceless, irreplaceable-"

"A life is priceless. A life is irreplaceable. The visioscope is only a tool. If you are determined to kill," Ravon narrowed his eyes even more, "well, all the Thals are gone. Who are you going to kill except - other Kaleds? Other children, even?"

Stor stared at him, too frightened and confused even to assume a fighting position, and then blurted out, "But if I'm not a soldier, I'm nothing!"

"If you're not a soldier, you can be anything else." Ravon put both hands in the small of his back and stretched, and Stor grabbed the cable leading to his own harness and moved a bit further away.

"Are you really Ravon?" the boy asked, narrow-eyed in his own turn. He didn't seem like any military man Stor had ever met. "They didn't - do something to you, did they? Transplant another mind into your body?" Davros had done that. Maybe Davros had done it to all the military command. Made them all strange. Made them - Stor groped for a long-unheard obscenity - pacifists.

"Not exactly. My mind is rather - changed, you could say. Or perhaps clarified. But it is still my mind, and all things considered, I think it's a better mind than it used to be." He looked a bit abashed. "My medical discharge, you see, was for a Level One head wound."

"Impossible," Stor said flatly. "You don't recover from a Level One wound."

Without a word, Ravon pushed back the padded bandage that covered his forehead, and let Stor see what was underneath. The boy's stomach twisted in rebellion, and he jerkily gestured and said, "Put it back."

While Ravon did so, Stor considered what he had seen. The close-cropped hair, the scars slashed across and through his forehead, the metal implants apparently bolting his skull together. Horrible. Horrible. He shivered for a moment inside, thinking that if he'd been shot in the head, they might have done that to him. He'd rather die than be - held together in bits like that.

"Time to get you back to class," Ravon said, casting one last wistful look up at the warm sun.

"If the war's over, why do I have to go to class?" That seemed logical enough.

"Well, we adults have a question that we need to ask you eventually, and if you don't know your lessons, you can't answer it."

"Tell me the question now!" Stor snapped.

Ravon looked down at him, at his bitter earnest child's face, and asked him gently, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Stor had no answer.


	2. New Lessons and Old

When Stor and Ravon returned to ground level, there was a Dalek waiting for them. It was a squat grey cylinder studded with mysterious bumps and weapons, just like on the poster and in the newsreels. And sitting in Ravon's little electric vehicle was one of the Elite, unmistakable in his black uniform.

  
Then Stor looked again.

  
"Isn't this going to be a bit of a shock?" Ravon asked the stranger, but Stor shoved his way forward, nearly knocking the man off his feet.

  
"Get out of that uniform," he growled at the woman, the woman who dared pretend to be a soldier.

  
She raised one eyebrow at Stor, looking ironic. "A completely new pickup line. I congratulate you." Definitely a woman, even if she wasn't quite as puffy around the torso as the others. She pulled at her collar, showing that the Kaled insignia of the all-seeing eye emitting lightning bolts of knowledge was missing; instead her collar had an embroidered red hexagon. Whatever that meant. "And really, I'm only wearing this at my commander's whim."

  
"Who is your commander?" He was only a child, but there had to be someone he could give a message to, a teacher, a leader, who would-

  
"Security Commander Nyder."

  
Stor felt his mind and body freeze at once. "Oh," he managed to say. The Security Commander was second only to Davros in power. If it was his order that a woman dressed like this, well, he supposed there was nobody to complain to, after all.

  
"Ravon," she said as she stood and turned, "did you really go out onto the surface of the Dome, in your condition?"

  
"I was wearing a climbing harness, I was perfectly safe," he said soothingly. "You don't need to worry about me, Esselle."

  
"Is there really a little man in there?" said Stor. He was staring at the Dalek, and it was staring back - presuming that it could see out of that lens-stalk arrangement on its front side.

  
"I am not a man," the Dalek replied. "I have never been a man. I am a Kaled mutant." Its voice was flat and mechanical, with a teeth-rattling resonance to it.

  
"A mutant?" Stor flinched.

  
"I am what the Kaled race would have become, after the war had poisoned all of Skaro. A being perfectly adapted to a toxic and irradiated environment. I am not a man. I am a Dalek. I am a superior being."

  
"All right…" The Dalek also had an implanted gun in its front, so Stor thought it best to be non-committal. "Do you believe the war is over?"

  
"This war is over. The war between the Kaleds and the Thals is over."

  
"You must be Stor, the young unbeliever." The woman looked Stor up and down. "My sisters were right, Ravon, he is quite like you."

  
Both Ravon and Stor flushed.

  
"At least you have youth on your side as an excuse," continued the woman, Esselle was what Ravon had called her. "We've had full-grown soldiers come home and start sniping from buildings, convinced they are killing Thal invaders. Or commit suicide rather than suffer the 'humiliation' of demobilisation." She shook her head. "Ridiculous."

  
"Bringing a Dalek to check on me seems like a bit like overkill," said Ravon.

  
"I'm checking for vermin. Four-legged and otherwise. I'd hate to see you two devoured by, say, a carnivorous land clam that chewed its way in through a sewer pipe. It might turn your skulls into pearls-"

  
"What makes you think you can be a soldier?" Stor interrupted. As disturbing as the Dalek was, the sight of a long-haired woman in an Elite uniform was even more disturbing. Unnatural.

  
"Such a lovely sneer for a boy your age…I'm not a soldier, I'm a typist." Esselle held out her gloved fingers and mimed pressing a keyboard.

  
"And you work in the Bunker? With Commander Nyder?"

  
"Whenever he lets me."

  
"And you've actually met Davros?" Stor had only seen the Supreme Commander in newsreels, and this woman had seen him face to face?

  
"Yes, he's very smart, always. And very mean, sometimes. And tell me, why do you keep frowning at me like that?"

  
"Women should be in the Women's Quarters. They never leave the Quarters. They need to be protected, so that they can bear the next generation of Kaled soldiers." Even Stor wasn't going to question that.

  
"And they don't have to fight, and you resent that."

  
He felt like a bright light had suddenly gone off somewhere inside of him. The women, always getting enough to eat, safe from attack, never needing to fight - was he resentful, jealous of them? "I - no of course not."

  
"Well, as it happens, the particle fountains and the fungal treatments mean that the environment isn't going to be contaminated for much longer. So the women can go outside - along with the men, of course. And we have support vat technology now, which means we can grow babies in artificial wombs, without laying extra burden on the women."

  
"Babies in vats?" Another, brighter light went off in Stor's head. "But then you could make as many soldiers as you wanted! We could start the war again and we would win!"  
  
The woman looked at him with an expression of misery. "You know, young man, if it were physically possible, I'd recommend a species change for you. You would make a good Dalek."

  
Stor looked at the Dalek, and the Dalek looked back.

* * *

  
Stor got very little sleep that night, back in the barracks. Again and again he repeated his story to the eager boys: of going onto the surface of the Dome, looking over the entire battlefield and seeing no fighting, of the sealed passes. And he talked about the visioscope, and about Ravon's hideous wounds.

  
He didn't mention the Dalek or the woman, though. The other boys would think him insane. A woman in uniform? They wouldn't believe a word he said after that. And he was starting to feel, deep inside, with a slithering sensation like the ground moving underfoot, that if what he had seen was the truth, it was very important that the others believe it too.

* * *

  
Language class was completely confusing the next day, but not as confused as Stor. If the war was over, was really over, what was he supposed to do for the rest of his life? Just - not fight?

  
While he pondered the idea of the Approved Words being broken down into individual symbols called 'letters', the teacher said, "You are to attend a ceremony in one hour. It's an execution. Of sorts."

  
The boys perked up at this. Executions could be quite entertaining. But when they got to the assembly area, there was something else there. A whole bunch of something elses.

  
Girls.

  
Girls their age or a little younger; Stor really couldn't tell. Their bodies were as straight as boys, but their long hair and round faces gave them away. They'd had all the calories they needed during their growing up, obviously. They wore floppy white gowns that nearly touched the ground, nothing like the neat coveralls of the boys. They huddled close together, staring across the large room at the boys, and Stor immediately noticed something. Most of the girls appeared quite frightened, but there were a handful of them who didn't. They looked cool and serene, and they ordered the other girls about with soft words. And these leader-girls all had practically identical faces. There were women as well, standing against the wall and watching the children with sharp eyes.

  
But Teacher Forg was getting up onto the low platform at one end of the assembly area now. The boys knew what to expect, and their eyes looked for the flogging rack, or the noose. But there was only a sheet of metal, with a thin wire framework cube on top of it, and two chairs in the middle of the cube. Chairs too small for adults.

  
Forg gestured, and the boys moved into neat rows and sat down on the floor in unison. They were used to assembly. Stor watched as the girls tentatively formed little groups, sitting down in ragged lines. Didn't they have any discipline? Then the girl nearest him looked back, and he shivered and snapped his eyes forward. It was one of those leader-girls, and there was something in her expression that was much too adult.

  
"Students," said Forg. "You have all seen Davros' announcement, that the Daughters of Skaro are here to help us create a greater Kaled people, and a greater Skaro. What the male students do not know that as part of the peace effort, and to redress the imbalances between the male and female population, the Daughters have created many sisters, many fellow Daughters, who are children."

  
Stor's face did not move, but his eyes crept right. The strange girl beside him: was she grown in a vat? He wanted to ask her: did she remember being born, could she see out of the vat while she was inside? But Forg was still speaking.

  
"And in introducing these Daughters to their fellow Kaled children, we have succeeded - in the most. But it is confusing and frightening, especially for people, for children, who do not understand the miracles that technology has achieved. And there have been - mistakes."

  
Two little girls were being led up to the front. They both moved stiffly, clearly terrified. The woman who escorted them looked very old to Stor, she even had white in her hair.

  
The woman spoke, after turning the two girls to face the audience. "These girls were jealous, of the authority that the young Daughters have been given. They attacked one of them and hurt her, very badly. And not by mistake." She cut her eyes at Forg.

  
One of the guilty girls gave a look of searing viciousness to the crowd. The other one swayed, wide-eyed, looking on the point of fainting.

  
"And they are going to be punished. This behind me," she gestured to the wire frame and the chairs, "is for a stasis field. A stasis field is an energy barrier which stop time, freezes time, for anything or anyone inside the field. These fields are being used in hospitals, to freeze the wounded until doctors can be ready. And as punishment for their crime, we are going to freeze these girls for one year. One year while all of you grow older, and they do not. One year while you learn and play and grow, and they do not. One year of not eating, not breathing, not seeing. And when the field is turned off, they will have lost one year in time - and many years of time they could have spent with you, with children of the same age."

  
There were noises that might have been whispers, gasps, muffled sobs from the seated spectators - the girls, of course. The boys just watched, silent and alert. The old woman drooped, but her hands were inflexible, bringing the girls to the chairs. "It is a harsh punishment. I hope that the price you pay is worth it, Atto, Sliss. I hope that there are no more attacks on other children."

  
She leaned close to the children, staring at their frightened faces. "I hope that I never have to do this again."

  
The little girls were seated, and the woman stepped back and nodded to Forg. He touched some control on a box that he was carrying. There was a muffled noise, and time froze.

  
Atto and Sliss were perfectly still in the chairs: one with her mouth open as though to shout, the other's hair tossed into the air by a turn of her head - and not coming down. It was as though the two girls had become a picture of themselves, in a metal frame. They were not breathing, or blinking. They were in stasis. The air in the metal frame started to get dark, as though a shadow was being cast on the two prisoners - but there was nothing to cast that shadow.

  
There was a rising murmur from the boys now. "What's happening?" whispered Stor.

  
"There is no time for light to reflect in and out of the field," said the girl beside him, and he flinched. "What you see is the last light. Once it has faded away, the field is black."

  
Stor imagined being put into a field like that. He looked at the boys of his section, and imagined them suddenly all a year older, a year ahead of him. All of them taller, stronger, and him still little. Would they make him stay with the same boys, as he frantically tried to keep up? Or would they stick him back with the younger boys, with strangers?

  
Stor looked at the girl beside him, and shivered inside. She looked back at him, calmly. Her calm face suddenly cracked, and tears ran from her deep brown eyes.

  
"It is a terrible thing to do to little girls," she said. "If only they had not hurt our sister so badly. If only we did not have to prove that violence will truly be punished." She blinked, her wet eyelashes flashing. "I wish, we hope, that someday they will forgive us."

* * *

  
The little girl beside Stor got up, and went to one of the adult Daughters who had entered with the other girls. She held her arms up, and with a smile the woman picked her up and held her, heads touching.

  
~Hello, Socca,~ the girl thought, and felt the thought flow into Socca's mind, and be answered.

  
~Hello, Chithren.~ Chithren was Child Integrator Three Hundred and Nine, just as Socca was Social Coordinator.

  
~These are very dangerous little boys you've brought me to play with.~

  
~I know. Esselle was frightened when Ravon took Stor on his little sightseeing trip. In his condition, Stor could probably kill him.~

  
~How much longer is this assembly?~

  
~Another twenty minutes. Gives anyone interested a chance to go up and touch the stasis field cube. We wouldn't want to 'integrate them back into their daily schedule with excessive downtime.'~ The thought had overtones of contempt, at the Kaled idea that children had to stay on schedule, no matter what.

  
~Some of the girls are playing,~ thought Chithren, looking at them a bit wistfully. She was rarely asked to play. Singing games, and the new counting games that had just been introduced. ~And the boys just sit there, except for the ones who've fallen asleep.~

  
~Soldiers need sleep. And notice how every sleeper has his back to the wall, or has another boy guarding him. Even here.~

  
Chithren shivered, and they both felt it. She was frightened.

  
~Socca…I could die in here. The girls aren't quite as vicious as the boys and they don't have combat training, but…~

  
~I know and I'm sorry. We will do everything we can to keep you safe, sister. But Kaled children outnumber the adults five to one. They have to be socialised, they have to be civilised. Before they decide to start their own war. Rise up and kill all the adults.~

  
~And then starve, surrounded by food-making equipment that they don't know how to run.~

  
Stor had wandered over, after giving his section orders to stay together. He looked up at the two of them, the woman holding the girl to her shoulder.

  
"Nobody ever picked me up or hugged me," he said, matter-of-factly.

  
They looked at him. "Do you want to be hugged?" they asked in uncanny unison.

  
"I don't know…" Stor shifted from foot to foot, and then retreated back to his section, carefully avoiding the groups of girls.

  
The two Daughters held each other extra-tight for a moment; their shared thoughts were one long pang of empathy.

  
~He doesn't know. He has never been held,~ mourned Chithren.

  
~Poor child.~

  
~We will make him rich beyond his dreams. Rich with friends who will not die on the battlefield. Rich with knowledge and skill and achievement, and all that he desires.~

  
~But first he has to desire it.~

  
~I know, Socca. You should put me down now, your arms are getting tired.~

  
~No. Let me hold you a little longer.~

  
~Love you, Socca.~

  
~Love you, Chithren. Love and be loved. We have given you the flower of the Kaled race, male and female, to be your friends and comrades, and someday your partners. Choose well.~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suspect that Councillor Dynna is the older woman who brings Atto and Sliss to their punishment.

**Author's Note:**

> The story's title is taken from 'Leviathan' by Thomas Hobbes, where life in the state of nature is described as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Which nicely describes the children of Skaro, as well. To give credit where credit is due, Florence King used the joke first.


End file.
